thoughts from a continuous state of motion

Planning…it’s new to me

As I sit in my office attempting to plan out sermon series for the youth group that I serve I thought to myself, “I’ve never had to do this before.” It’s an exciting feeling for me beginning to venture into new, post-college, career oriented endeavors. I’ve already had the…err…umm…”pleasure” of being the point man for our summer mission trips and now I’m looking to stretch myself in other areas.

I’m finding out more about what comes naturally to me and what doesn’t in relation to my job. I naturally put things off and seem to be decent (for a rookie) at the administrative aspects of the job. Something that I feel could use some improvement (probably due to my natural tendency to procrastinate) comes in the forming of Sunday night messages.

Recently, I’ve been using some curriculum from Simply Youth Ministry by Doug Fields. They’re good for the most part. We don’t hold the exact same theology on every issue, but they’re great foundational tools for a series. What I’m looking to do now is to attempt to formulate a, somewhat, original series; not original in the sense that it’s never been done before (because I think at this point, after nearly 2000 years everything has been done before), but original in that I didn’t take someone else’s outline and plug my words into it. I’ll try to find a book or two, read them, dig down into the Bible, and hopefully form a coherent message from them. I’m excited, nervous, and a little hesitant but if I’m ever going to work on “Throwing it Down” this is definitely a place for me to start.

I have a couple of books in mind that I may start with, but if you have any that you have read or you have used personally for something like this I would always welcome your input.

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2 thoughts on “Planning…it’s new to me”

I’ll tell you…I feel a bit grimey using the Simply Youth Ministry stuff. I agree that their theology is a bit too “baptist” for me, but what I do like is their graphics.

I’ve come to the point where I pretty much only use their graphics.
I’ll take a look at each individual outline, but formulate my own sermons from my own studies. Basically I use them as the beginning inspiration.

I save all the stuff I did (preparation wise) for the next time, then hopefully I will eventually have time to create my own graphics. Then it will be completely mine!

Start there.
Take time to prepare.
Look months in advance.
You’ll find that it helps you more than anything.